


Over the moon and pass this dark night, I’ll take you there, just follow me

by Anonymous



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Dystopia, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:02:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27302353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Jeno takes Chenle berry picking
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Moon Taeil, Lee Jeno/Zhong Chen Le
Comments: 7
Kudos: 22
Collections: Anonymous





	Over the moon and pass this dark night, I’ll take you there, just follow me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> CW; There's some minor gore ahead. It's nothing too gruesome, but if you're squeamish, beware
> 
> The hyuckil is a kinda ambiguous side pairing here. I'd say don't read if you're here for the hyuckil
> 
> The title is lyrics from BDC - Shoot The Moon

When the curfew is called, Jeno is up in the hills, collecting blackberries in the woods with Chenle. The day is warm, dappled honey light streams through the canopy, Chenle's lips are stained purple, and neither of them has any idea what's about to happen.

"Here." 

He holds a particularly bulbous berry to Chenle's lips. The fragile skin is tearing, juice getting on Jeno's fingers. Chenle, bent over, straining to reach through a gap in the hedge without snagging the sleeve of his new hoodie, gets caught by surprise. Jeno feels his gasp as a puff of air on his fingertips. Holding Jeno's wrist steady, Chenle bites the offered fruit and then says,

"What happened to 'we shouldn't eat without taking them home and washing them first'? And what happened to saving them for Jaemin's mum to make jam with?" 

The gap in the hedge is a little too narrow. Chenle gives up on the delicious, plump berries hanging there in plain sight. He rights himself, stretching and bending his back like a cat. There's a tiny black seed at the corner of his lips that Jeno is physically itching to wipe away.

"Needs energy to carry all this?" he shrugs after a moment, indicating the cool boxes he and Chenle have. They're not very big cool boxes and contain nothing but what they've gathered that day and, in Jeno's, a couple of rolls and a cannister of water. Chenle, deservedly, laughs at him. Jeno abandons resisting and wipes that seed away with the pad of his thumb. Chenle blushes, giggling with embarrassment. So Jeno pokes his dimple. 

"Let's go."

They press on, following the burbling of a stream along which the brambles range. The air is alive with the chirring of insects, the whistling of birds, the fragrance of life all around them and under their feet. Jeno is as happy as he's been in months. He'd been scared that Chenle would get bored out here, where they can go a whole day without seeing another human being. They haven't even had phone signal since the morning. But even though Chenle slows down on gathering berries, he sings and he points out wild flowers or weird bugs, asking Jeno if he knows what they're called. When they hit a stretch of relatively flat ground and aren't in danger of tripping over briars and tree roots for a while, he holds Jeno's sleeve, content to stroll with him in the quiet and the peace.

The steam leads them on a loop. When they at last stop to eat and bathe their tired feet in the cool, clear water, they're only a half an hour or so from where they'd entered the woods hours ago. The grassy spot looks over their village with its brick houses and narrow lanes. Jeno can see their school, its high white walls looming over the village to the north. The only taller building is the austere police station on the south side. Jaemin's pretty family home, ringed by cherry trees, is blocked from view by it. His and Donghyuck's homes are somewhere in the warren of houses near the village centre and Chenle's is away in the countryside, too far to see from here. The deserted road is a black thread leading to the city, that cluster of concrete to the east that Jeno, like every villager, prefers to ignore. A blue sky embraces the village, and a haze of rose coloured clouds. 

Lying on the chamomile bank, the setting sun shining golden on his skin, Chenle finally turns his phone back on. Jeno is splashing water on his face, balanced precariously on a pair of glimmering slick rocks. He jerks his head up when he hears the wave of notifications. A learned nervousness springs up in his belly - he tries to press it down. 

"Anything up?" 

Chenle sits up, movements mechanical, eyes locked on his phone screen. 

"Hyung, we have to get home."

They began barricading the city when Jeno was still in primary school. Sometimes it would only last a day. There'd be a simple roadblock set up, three or four miserably bored junior police officers turning back any villagers who approached in their trucks or on bikes. No one ever approached from the other direction - at least, not without getting their vehicle colanderised well before they got near the junior police officers and their polite little roadblock. 

Nowadays, the barricade tends to last a month or more. Villagers have learnt to live without entering the city. Instead of junior police, there will be peace officers in their black uniforms, bulletproof vests and steel toe boots, visors hiding their faces. Instead of cheery public announcements that, owing to the important work of the civil hygiene office, villagers were encouraged to stay indoors, there are drones patrolling the skies. They perch on streetlights and rooves and anywhere, spotting villagers who break curfew and reporting their details to the office of peace enforcement. 

Jeno scans the messages flooding Chenle's phone and gulps. The curfew was announced hours ago. 

"Hyung, we have to go." Chenle shakes his arm. Jeno realises he's leaning over his shoulder at an awkward angle to peer at the screen. He drops down to sit on the grass.

"No."

"What?"

"You're place is too far. I'll never get you home on time." Chenle lives with his mum in an elegant refurbished manor house. It's beautiful, but distant. Jeno estimates it'd take at least an hour from where they are, and sunset is rapidly turning to dusk.

"Your place then. Your parents like me, they won't mind me staying over."

Jeno clears his throat. He wouldn't mind Chenle staying over either. None of their other friends for once. Chenle borrowing his pyjamas. Chenle falling asleep on his pillow. Jeno really wouldn't mind that at all. There's only one problem.

"No. We can't get there without passing the cop shop. It'll be dark by then."

"Then where? Hyung!" Chenle's jostling his arm again, more urgent now, his fear building. Just to calm him down, Jeno pulls him into a hug. Chenle tucks his head into the crook of Jeno's neck, let's his hair be petted. 

"It's alright. Hyung will figure something out."

"Yeah, sure," Chenle mocks. But he doesn't move from Jeno's arms. His steady breathing tickling Jeno's skin, sticky from sweat. Jeno picks Chenle's phone up - he didn't bother to bring his own, the glorious day had lulled him into a sense of security, he supposes. He scrolls through the recent messages again.

"Taeillie-hyung!" he announces, making Chenle pick himself up, hands on Jeno's chest, head tilted in confusion.

"Donghyuckie said he's spending the night there because of the curfew. I'm sure he can squeeze in two more. It's straight down the hill heading east. We'll be there in no time."

Chenle doesn't look anything like as convinced as Jeno would like, but he nods and hurries to grab their few things. Moments later, they're racing across the long abandoned hillside, keeping low through thin bushes and bent trees, rushing blind through the long grasses. A sweet breeze of early autumn blows under blood orange skies. If Jeno forgets about everything, this moment is close to perfect.

Taeil, the local florist and Donghyuck's boss, lives in a row of terraced houses, uniformly brown and grim. The sky's already an inky blue by the time Jeno and Chenle reach his street. Out of fear of curtain twitchers, they hop a crumbling wall into the alley strewn with cigarette butts and discarded household rubbish. They creep along the narrow lane behind the terrace until they arrive at Taeil's back-gate. The high metal bars with their chipped yellow paint appear dull grey in the half-light. Jeno gives Chenle a hoosh up, then pulls himself up and over.

The back garden is tiny. Most of it's taken up by two tall apple trees, their tangled boughs obscuring the house from its neighbours. The lawn is littered with miscellaneous scraps of rusting metal and decaying early fruit drop. The boys hear a noise in the kitchen - a chair being scraped back or something like that - and knock quietly on the wooden door. The noise stops. Jeno feels the presence of another body on the other side of the flimsy door. It's like ants on his skin. A person frozen and watching, waiting for whatever's disturbed him to make the first move. Chenle's hold tightens on his arm.

"Taeillie-hyung?" Jeno calls in a whisper, "It's Jeno and Lele."

Each second hangs heavy. Jeno wants to call again. But he's tongue-tied, his imagination conjuring ideas he refuses to believe could be true. He shuts his eyes. Breathes in. There's sweat, the sickly sweetness of the rotting apples, Chenle's eucalyptus shampoo, the taste of blackberries still lingering on his tongue. He doesn't know what they'll do if Taeil doesn't open up. (Or if someone in a black uniform does). This was Jeno's only plan.

With the rattle of the catch being undone, the door opens. Music is playing softly somewhere, only the insistent bass reaches their ears. The air smells of kimchi and fried pork, as Taeil's place usually does. From here, Jeno can peek through to the other room. He sees the mop of blond hair of someone sitting on the sofa - it must be Donghyuck. Jeno looks up and any cheerful greeting is scalded from his lips. Taeil's scared. 

"Boys, why are you here now? You shouldn't be out."

He bundles them up the step and in, closing the door and sliding the catch behind them. Now, they both have a couple of inches of height on Taeil, but it's hard to feel that when they know they're potentially getting him in trouble just by being there. Jeno glances down the dark hallway to Donghyuck sitting in the lamplight. He hasn't moved. Jeno wonders if Donghyuck is angry with him. Jeno's angry with himself. 

Chenle shuffles closer into his space. The younger of them explains how they got caught out berry picking, didn't receive the curfew notice until it was too late, how Donghyuck had told them he was staying here a night. Taeil doesn't say anything through this, just pinches his chapped lips like he always does when he's nervous. Nor does Donghyuck. He still hasn't moved, hasn't come to greet them. That feeling is back, something crawling on Jeno's skin. As Taeil is stumbling over his words - he understands, but it's difficult, if there's no where else, but he can't really - Jeno calls out, louder than he intends to. 

"Donghyuckie, hello!" 

Taeil's hands grip the end of his jumper tight. The hum of the fridge, the TV from next door, the tick of Taeil's obnoxiously bright sunflower clock - they're suddenly so loud, a cacophony. 

"Boys, please -" 

Donghyuck doesn't move. Jeno marches down the hall. It's cramped. There are Taeil and Donghyuck's bikes, Taeil's tool cupboard, the coat stand piled high till it looks like a monster from Jeno's childhood storybooks hovering in the gloom. The walls are hung with dozens of photographs staring down at him. Jeno only sees Donghyuck's long hair. His shoulders slumped. He's wearing the red jacket Jaemin bought him for his birthday a few weeks back. Jeno's aware of Chenle at his heels. He enters Taeil's cozy little sitting room. Rounds the couch. 

"Donghyuckie? Donghyuck. Oh god."

His friend is sitting on the ancient brown leather loveseat. His hands are resting on his frayed jeans. Wires run from under his blue-black painted nails to a white box at his feet. A red light inside gazes up like an unblinking eye. Donghyuck's face is beside him on the empty seat, eyes closed, at peace. Where his face ought to be is a tapestry of flesh and bone and wire and chips. 

Chenle is more brave than Jeno. He crouches down to press his finger against the soft cheek of the face lying discarded on the sofa. He gasps, jerks up. 

"Warm." He hides in Jeno's arms. 

"There's a rumour they're looking for him. I shut him down and I've been searching for bugs, anything that might give away his location. I thought some fink might've managed to put a tag on him."

Taeil comes in. He sits down with a huff beside Donghyuck. He holds the boy's face gently in his hands, runs his thumb over the constellation of moles there, and places it in Donghyuck's lap. 

"A couple of years ago, I found him in the forest one evening when I was mushroom gathering."

"Mushroom gathering?" 

"Yes." Taeil meets Jeno's eyes, daring him to question the man's choice of hobbies further. "He'd run away from the peace enforcement officers training school. He was, um." He laces his fingers with Donghyuck's - carefully, so as not to disturb the wires - and squeezes the unresponsive hand. "He was all blood and puss. His skull was exposed and his arms all… all sliced up. They'd started to steal his mind too. But he still had some memories and he kept… He was jabbering his name and his mother's name and the street he grew up on. Just that, over and over. Sitting in this tree hollow in the dark, bleeding out and babbling, and I… Well, I thought it was a miracle that he'd survived to get that far. So I took him home, fixed him up, got him new memories and a job. He doesn't know." His hold tightens on Donghyuck's hand. His knuckles are white. He looks up, straight into Jeno, then Chenle's eyes. He's exhausted, but the look is strong enough to root them to the spot. "He mustn't know, boys."

Jeno's knees are jelly. He's aware of Chenle's arm coming around his waist. He's remembering when he first met Donghyuck. They were 16 and Jeno thought Donghyuck was so cool for already having a job and being done with school. He started stopping by Taeil's flower shop more often - not just to play with the shop cat, Bongsikkie, now, but to sit at the counter sharing a coke and chatting with Donghyuck who grew up in the city. _My mum's passed on and I don't exactly get on with my dad or his new bit. It's alright though - Hyung's taking care of me. I like it here_.

"Where can we go?" Jeno hears his own voice as if from a distance. "We don't want to put Hyung or Donghyuckie in danger, right?" (His head on Jeno's shoulder, Chenle nods). "But I don't know where else to go."

This is how, not long later, they're back at the edge of the woods. Their jeans are muddy from scrambling up the hill, trying to stay low, out of sight. They're hungry, Chenle hurt his wrist slipping in the alley back down near Taeil's house, and the infinite blanket of crystal stars says it'll be a cold night. 

A great weight is lifted from Jeno's shoulders once they're back under the cover of the trees. Taeil's right. There are no eyes to watch them here. Barely anyone comes this far even in daylight. If they just stay quiet they can't get in trouble. Taeil's sending their parents a message that they're crashing at his along with Donghyuck. Everything will be fine. It will be. So long as the authorities aren't coming for his friend - in which case they'll find Jeno and Chenle's cool boxes forgotten behind Taeil's apple tree. Jeno shivers. Donghyuck, silent, wires woven though his bones …

"Hyung?" 

Chenle's keeping pace beside him. He's lightly holding his injured wrist. He'd said it was just a bruise earlier. But they'd been desperate to make it back to the wilderness before being spotted then.

"It's nothing. Hey, uh, let's go this way."

He tugs Chenle's sleeve and cuts up off the gamepath, past a mound of mossy stones that he thinks were a well at some time in the past. 

"Do you know where you're going?" Chenle asks. It's said light-heartedly, but Jeno notes that Chenle does sound tired. Jeno's tired and he's, frankly, a lot fitter than Chenle.

"Of course I do," he brags, "I think so."

"Reassuring," Chenle laughs. 

There's a sharp slope all covered in leaf litter and a few trees growing out at a strange angle. Jeno bounds up, then pauses, reaching down to help Chenle. The boy attempts to jump it like Jeno had, wobbles, and then Jeno has to grab Chenle's arms and pull him close to keep him from slipping backwards. And then… Then Jeno is standing there with Chenle in his arms. Alone. No one to make fun of him for blushing or shatter the atmosphere with a surreal joke. No one to tell him he's held on for too long.

"Thanks," Chenle murmurs. His breath touches the hairs on Jeno's neck. The stillness of the forest gathers in on them. Chenle's warm. It makes Jeno notice the growing chill more. It makes him not want to let go even more. But wouldn't that be weird.

"See?" He steps back, giving Chenle's shoulder a squeeze. "Told you I knew where I was going."

A little distance away are a couple of lichen covered boulders. The moonlight shines down on them like an altar. 

"We can rest here a while."

Chenle gives him one of those smiles where his eyes scrunch up like whiskers and honey fills up Jeno's chest.

It's dry and secluded and feels safe. Jeno kicks his heels against the great grey rock. The question is can they stay there all night? Chenle's already nodding off, huddled into Jeno's side, and Taeil warned them not to. _Stay on guard. Just in case. There are… there are eyes, you know? Where you won't expect them. Be careful_. Jeno's not sure how the authorities could have eyes all the way up here. But Taeil must have said that for a reason.

Jeno leans into Chenle. The boy's hair tickles his nose. It's strange to hear Taeil talking about anything outside of flowers, music, food, cats and Donghyuck, let alone in that tone. It makes Jeno's heart constrict. This whole time he's been keeping the secret to himself. This whole time Jeno's dear friend has been a half-human fugitive. Will the authorities find them? Even if they don't tonight, will Jeno be able to look at Donghyuck the same way? He's never been good with secrets.

He's biting his nails, so swallowed up with worry he doesn't notice his hold tighten on Chenle.

"Hyung, you ok?" 

"I'm great."

"Are you?" 

"Not really."

Something tiny moves through the leaf litter. Something flashes across the clouds. Jeno's nape is hot. His ears strain to catch the coiling of the ferns, the bamboo piercing through the soil. Chenle sits up and stretches. Jeno's hand lingers on his back, feeling his spine arch. The boy let's out a jaw cracking yawn.

"Hyung, I never messaged Jisungie back."

"Hm?" Jeno blinks. Chenle is perfect under the moonshine, pearl white skin and black eyes like galaxies. It takes Jeno's brain a moment to catch up. 

"It's just I forgot about it with everything. But I keep thinking he'll be worried." He pulls at the cuffs of his hoodie, but the sleeves aren't long enough to cover his hands. Jeno briefly considers holding his hand. Unfortunately, these days the concept of holding Chenle's hand makes his palms sweat. Instead, he just holds his sleeve, stroking a thumb over his wrist where a bruise has started to show.

"It'll be alright. Jaemin will have called my mum or yours and gotten Taeil-hyung's story. Then either he messaged Jisungie or Jisungie already messaged him directly."

Chenle hums agreement, but still looks doubtful, eyes drooping, back slumped. So Jeno wraps him in a side-hug and adds,

"Anyway! And anyway, the sky is so pretty tonight. You know he'll have called up Injunnie so they can stargaze."

Chenle cracks a grin at that. Jeno feels himself smiling in response.

"That's true. They're probably still on the phone with Jisung pretending he knows the constellations and stuff."

"Doesn't he?" This is news to Jeno. Jisung's been interested in space ever since he was ten years old. The constellations seems like the kind of thing he must know by now. But Chenle grins at him.

"Only kinda. He's more interested in, like, dark matter and wormholes and I don't know, weird stuff. But he feigns it so he can argue with Jun-ge."

"Oh. That sort of makes sense." Chenle's best friend and his cousin do enjoy arguing about things Jeno doesn't understand, after all. He must look funny because Chenle laughs at him again. He's always laughed easily. And perhaps Jeno should worry about keeping quiet, should recall Taeil's words and worry about not alerting any drones that might happen to be lurking in the dark. But it's difficult to worry about anything at all when Chenle falls back against his side, head on his shoulder, and sighs, 

"Ah, but it _is_ pretty tonight. All the stars."

"Yeah, really pretty," Jeno mumbles. Like the cliché that he is, he forgets to look at the sky. 

They're like that for a long while. Jeno doesn't know how long, it's too hard to keep track. Chenle's breathing is even. He's snuggled into Jeno's side. He's pulled Jeno's arm onto his lap to squirrel his cold fingers under the other boy's sleeve. It's cute. Chenle's cute. Jeno tells him that a lot, but not in the way he wants to. 

They've always been able to sit in silence together. Chenle's more boisterous and noisy with Renjun and Jisung. He can keep pace with Jaemin and Donghyuck's chattering and weird humour. In the past, Jeno had been scared Chenle didn't like him. When they were together, the younger boy acted softer, more quiet. With some (a lot of) pep talking from Jaemin and Donghyuck he's gotten over that stage. Chenle mustn't _hate_ him. If he did, he wouldn't agree to go running with Jeno, or help him with Chemistry projects (Chenle's his dongsaeng in age. But, as regards science-brains, Jeno's a kitten and Chenle's a mighty lynx), or come berry picking with him on one of the last days of summer…

Guilt washes over Jeno. He opens his mouth to speak, when there's an explosion.

Chenle snaps up, clutching Jeno's arm on instinct.

"哪裡?!"

The shock makes his mother tongue come out. Luckily, that's one of the few words Jeno knows. _Where_?

"It was the road, wasn't it? Someone tried to leave the city after curfew."

"Was it?" 

Jeno's bluster crumbles under Chenle's intense scrutiny. 

"I… I don't know. It must have been."

"But what if- Hyung, Taeil-hyung and Donghyuckie-hyung, what if…"

"We need to stay safe."

"If it was them we're not safe anyway. Let's check. Hyung, please."

It's the second time that night Chenle's shown how much more brave he is. Jeno grunts. He pushes himself off their boulder that had felt like an island of safety, and holds his arms open to catch Chenle when he slides off after him.

The forest isn't the same at night. Jeno cuts away from the path, marching through undergrowth and spiderwebs towards the edge of the woods. He can usually rely on his sense of direction to find his way through here. But when he ducks under a fungusy branch and enters a new clearing he has an overwhelming sense of being lost. There's a tight triangle of land cut out by slanting, gnarled trunks. Gnats are emerging from the muddy ground. It looks entirely foreign. He's sure he's never been there before. He has no idea how to proceed. The snuffling sound he took to be rodents transforms into bears, watching from the shadows, rabid mountain cats slinking ever closer.

Coming up behind him, Chenle catches his arm. 

"Is it that way, Hyung? Where that heron's looking at us."

Jeno gulps. He peers where Chenle's pointing. Sure enough, a night heron's there, observing them. It's body's faded into darkness, only its white chin and red, staring eyes giving it away.

"Yeah." The relief makes him grin. "Yeah, that's right. I'm making a nature boy out of you, huh?"

Chenle returns a half-smile and waits for him to lead. Jeno's head is still uncertain, but his feet know the way. He pounds through the maze of trees, Chenle hot on his heels, the barking squawk of the heron trailing them. 

It's not Taeil and Donghyuck. From where they hide, hunkered in the tall grasses, they have a clear view of Taeil's street. It's quiet. The squat terraces are serene under the endless sky. They're safe. One fear flows away from him. Jeno's muscles want to sag. He grits his teeth to keep from falling. Chenle's curled into his side and Jeno doesn't want to disturb him until he has to. He puts an arm around the boy - for support and to psychically transmit a little energy. Chenle's barely eaten all day, it's no wonder he's half-asleep already. Jeno would love to stay there in the whispering grass, his friend in his arms, and let him sleep until morning.

But they can't do that. The smoking wreck on the road to the city tells him they can't. It's not safe to be out, to be in sight. 

"Why did they run? They must have known what would happen."

Chenle's so close. His voice vibrates along Jeno's skin. He nuzzles even closer. Jeno picks a leaf from his hair, lets his fingers comb through the soft strands a little longer than necessary. 

"Maybe they didn't care."

They can't see much. A shifting cloud of drones. Some smouldering, twisted metal. Black figures standing in a ring, their visors reflecting the night. 

"What were they running from? What happens in there?" 

"It's better not to think about it."

"I can't not think about it."

Jeno squeezes his shoulders. The gesture feels useless, inept. But it's all he can do. They all try to live safe, peaceful, ignorant lives. More black uniformed peace enforcement officers march from the guard post to join their associates. Donghyuck could have been one of them. Expressionless, relentless. Weapon ready. Half-man, electric eyes glaring behind glass. Bile rises in Jeno's guts.

"Let's go. We shouldn't stay here."

Reluctantly, Chenle unattaches himself from Jeno's hold and they creep back under the canopy, the bark of the night heron welcoming them in. 

Jeno really is lost this time. His gut told him not to go straight back to their previous spot. So he'd started on a circular track around the forest. Except that somehow in the darkness he'd got turned around. Now he's not even sure what direction they're heading. He keeps going, very much channelling Jaemin's ability to power through failures in the hope to at least fall flat on his face in style.

On the plus side, ballsing up this badly has given him the courage to hold Chenle's hand again. The minimum he ought to do is keep them together whilst they're pathetically lost.

He picks his way across a brook, hanging on on the other side to catch Chenle should he stumble. The Sun is beginning to rise. Even where they are, deep within, a spectral light is filtering through. It casts a purple grey glow on Chenle's skin. His expensive jeans are torn and stained. His new hoodie is smeared with mud. The bruise on his wrist has darkened to an angry brown. Jeno bites his lip - he really hasn't done much to deserve the trust Chenle puts in him. He'll do better, he promises himself. He'll try to be worthy of it. Chenle slips on an unsteady stepping stone. He lands against Jeno's chest with a thud.

"You ok?" Jeno checks, combing dirty fingers through Chenle's hair. 

"Yeah," Chenle wheezes, "Sorry." As he gets his breath back, his arms link around Jeno's shoulders. Jeno smiles against the crown of his head.

"It's ok."

Chenle lifts his head. But his arms are still loose, comfortable around Jeno's shoulders. It dawns on Jeno that he is, in point of fact, holding Chenle by the waist. On normal days, these particulars would make Jeno flushed as a tomato and he'd try to play off the situation. Right now though, amongst everything, it's hard to mind. Chenle looks up at him, cat-like eyes full of fondness. The pre-dawn light bathes their tired faces. This would be a terrible moment to say it. The words are slithering up Jeno's throat. He swallows them back. Not now.

"Oh, him!" 

Jeno startles back to earth. He follows Chenle's gaze, craning his neck to glimpse over his shoulder, and,

"Oh! No, it can't be him."

The night heron is perched on a low branch, a charcoal grey apparition in the gloom, red eyes fixed on them. Jeno shivers. His arms tighten around Chenle.

"It looks like him," Chenle insists.

"It's a bird. They all look the same."

"No, they don't. You told me they don't."

Chenle's got him there. But that had been the ducks at the pond in the village park. Jeno passes them by so often that he's named all the families and knows their habits well. This is just a heron. Hunched back, still as midnight, watching.

"I don't… I don't think we should be here."

"We knew that already," Chenle quips, blithely wiping his muddy hands on Jeno's sleeves. The rough gesture turns more gentle. "Hyung, what's wrong?"

Jeno's ears are twitching. The fall of a leaf. The crack of a twig. Something careering from the undergrowth fat away. He's thinking about Donghyuck. The stillness of the usually sanguine boy. Wires emerging from flesh. Wires from his fingernails, snaking down to that silent box, its one red light watching.

"Run. Just run."

He takes off blindly. Chenle jerks, but then is running with him, hands clasped, breathing hard. It's stupid, he tells himself. It's a bird. It's only a bird. But the terror that it's something else is alive in him. What if it really is watching? What if it's been watching all day?

Chenle's hand slips from his. Jeno snaps his arms out and, thankfully, snatches Chenle's sleeve. There's a stream ahead. They splash through the water and clamber up the bank on the other side, fingers digging into moss and soil. They have to rest. Jeno's muscles are crying at him. His veins run with acid. If he's this bad, Chenle must be driving on adrenaline alone. But they can't rest without cover and Jeno finds himself too suspicious to trust anywhere. What if it's behind them now? What if it sees? He wants to scream and wail. But he keeps running, dragging Chenle with him now.

Then, like a blessing, a patch of sky. Delicate blue and pink and slashed with silver. Jeno focuses what's left of his energy on that. When they get there, he'll know where they are again and maybe, maybe a plan will come to him. A plan that isn't 'run until you die'. Thin branches whip his face. His shoulders ache from ducking low so long. But Chenle's still with him. The curfew's almost over. He'll figure something out. Their breathing is ragged. The beat of their footsteps is loud in his ears. The patch of sky is hidden for a moment. It reappears. Bigger, more beautiful. Chenle is yanked from his hold.

Jeno tumbles to his knees. A wordless yell is torn from his throat. The creature bursts from the bushes. Not a creature - a girl. She's pinned Chenle to the ground. She's growling something, no language they can understand. Chenle tries to push her off. But he has nothing left, his energy's all spent. Jeno too. He attempts to throw himself at her, but all he ends up doing is scuttling in the mud. His eyes burn. In his mind he's shouting to her, but all that comes out is a yelp and whine. She scrambles back.

Now he can see her face, Jeno understands why her words hadn't made sense. Her skin is peeled back. Bone and metal and translucent puss. Dried blood dying her ragged T-shirt. Dried blood all up her neck. Wires dripping from her eyes and spurting out of the flesh still clinging to her jaw bone, pearl white in the dawn. She's pleading, he realises, now his initial, visceral terror has retreated. Is this what Taeil found? Was Donghyuck once like this? But Jeno's just a boy who likes hiking where he shouldn't. He's not like Taeil, whatever Taeil used to be before he accepted the quiet life and became their florist.

Jeno crawls over. His fingers get cut on stray stones. There's blood and earth all over his hands. Chenle pushes himself out. They fall together, holding on to each other on the forest floor. The girl makes a sound like a sob. Maybe she'd cry if she still had tearducts.

"Look, I don't know… We can't…"

Jeno tries. He really does. But the thirst and hunger and exhaustion are finally squeezing the breath from his bones. In any case, what can he say? If he's right and that bird is a drone, they're all dead anyway. She has neatly stapled scars running up the inside of her arms. Her expressions are gone with her face peeled away. Still, even if she can't say it, she must be in pain. More pain than he can imagine. 

"I'm sorry."

The boys don't hear it. Its flight is silent. But she sees. She springs like a spider. In a blink, she's behind them, the heron captured in her hands. She throttles it, smashes it against the ground. It cracks. Bone, crumpled metal, pea-sized organs and coils of wire. Deep violet blood splatters her jeans. One of its red eyes pops out, rolling for a moment then falling dead once and for all. The girl roars. It sounds like defiance. But Jeno doesn't understand, because the next thing she does is dash to the edge of the forest, to the open skies where she'll easily be spotted and dealt with. Months later, lying in his arms, cocooned in the darkness of his room, Chenle will whisper that he thinks she'd chosen how to die, that he'd thought her brave. And Jeno will kiss him until he stops feeling the cuts and bruises and cold mud on his skin, until this night returns to a solemn tomb in his mind.

In the present, they follow her, creeping low, leaving the carcass of the bird-drone behind them. She surfaces into brilliant morning light on the edge of the forest nearest the city. They lose her in the grass and the bracken for a while. All there is is quiet, the rustle of the long grasses, deep voices far far away, dawn birds calling out. Chenle opens his mouth to speak. From the uncertainty in his eyes, Jeno can guess what he's going to say. He prepares, already planning the best way back into the forest and through to sneak down to Taeil's. She flies from the grass, hardly a meter from them.

She runs, matted hair and wires fluttering behind her. The Sun shines on her blood soaked skin, glints on the exposed metal. A silent bullet hits her in the gut. She falls. Immediately, half a dozen black figures form themselves into a phalanx.

"Hyung, let's go."

Jeno nods and takes the lead again. Light has sifted through to the forest. Leaves emerald green. Fungi crystal white and yellow and sickly red. Peridot blue butterflies cartwheel across their path. As naive as it is, Jeno can't help feeling confident as he walks, Chenle's hand firmly in his.

When they reach the edge of the forest overlooking Taeil's street, they slip into the bushes, crawling on hands and knees to find a spot where they can wait and observe. They want to make certain everything's safe. The spot they've found is miniscule - a criss-cross of spiny branches press in on them, scratching them and catching in their hair and clothes. To fit, Jeno's had to pull Chenle near. In fact, if Jeno were of a mind to make himself flustered and lose the power of speech, he'd say Chenle's practically in his lap.

"Hyung," the boy whispers. Goosebumps rise all up Jeno's nape. "Thanks. I mean, on the presumption we don't die, thanks."

"There's nothing to thank me for." Hopefully, being forced to mumble conceals how thick his voice is. It's hard to speak when Chenle's lips are mere centimetres from his.

"No, there is. Yesterday was really good and it's thanks to Hyung I didn't get my eyes pecked out last night."

"It's thanks to me you were in danger in the first place."

"Just let me thank you," Chenle giggles and pecks Jeno's lips.

Jeno's speechless. Not a single one of his imagined scenarios involved battered bodies, exhausted limbs, hiding from the authorities. But Chenle's lips are soft and pretty and still very slightly stained purple by the berries they'd eaten. Yesterday. In the Sun and the heat. Jeno can't stop staring. So Chenle kisses him again.

His lips linger, and Jeno eventually remembers to respond this time. Their mouths move together. Jeno's arms hold him close. Chenle's hands fist in Jeno's sweatshirt. Jeno explores his sides, his ribs, his waist. Under the hoodie hanging loose on his shoulders and his torn T-shirt, warm skin, fluttering stomach. This is when he notices it.

He hugs Chenle tighter as a pretext. His fingers feel out the spot again. A rip in his T-shirt, just above his hip. Underneath, the skin is cut. Emerging from the cut, frayed copper wire. Jeno pulls back. He zips up Chenle's hoodie, hiding the wires away again. Pressing a kiss to his cheek, he says, smiling,

"Let's go. If it's really not safe we won't find out from here."

"Disaster and fortune don't have doors," Chenle agrees with conviction.

They pick their way down the hill, morning sunshine caressing their wounds. 

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written for a fic exchange that got cancelled. The prompt I abused was: The city is experiencing a power outage, so Person A and Person B spend the night laying in the grass together and staring up at the stars
> 
> Chenle's saying at the end is 禍福無門, 'disaster and fortune know no doors'


End file.
